The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future

by Laurence C. Smith

  There are good reasons to think not. One is a persistent trend of northern cooperation over the past two decades. A second is a legal document of the United Nations that is fast becoming the globally accepted rulebook on how countries carve up dominion over the world’s oceans.

  The story of the first begins October 1, 1987, with a famous speech delivered in Murmansk by then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Standing at the gateway of his country’s strategic nuclear arsenal in the Arctic Ocean, Gorbachev called for transforming the region from a tense military theater to a nuke-free “zone of peace and fruitful cooperation.” He proposed international collaborations in disarmament, energy development, science, indigenous rights, and environmental protections between all Arctic countries.341 The choice of Murmansk, the Arctic’s largest and most important port city and the heart of the Soviet Union’s military and industrial north, was highly symbolic. Just as the sea ice would experience a record-breaking melt exactly twenty years (to the day) later, the Cold War thawed first in the Arctic.

  Four years after the Murmansk speech the Soviet Union dissolved. The Russian Arctic, which had been totally closed off from the world, plunged into a horrible decade of decimated population and economy, but new opportunities to interact with outsiders opened. After a half century of iron-walled separation, aboriginal Alaskan and Russian relatives become reacquainted across the Bering Strait. Siberians, if they had the money, could travel abroad, while western scientists—including myself—could enter and work in formerly closed parts of the Russian North. New international collaborations and foreign cash342 were a rare bright spot for many suffering Siberians. All around the Arctic, new collaborations and groups were born. Aboriginal groups, most notably the Inuit, began to organize politically across international borders.

  In 1991 all eight NORC countries—the United States, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia—signed a landmark agreement to cooperate on the region’s pollution problems, and scheduled regular meetings to actually accomplish something.343 Five years later the Arctic Council was formed,344 an intergovernmental forum whose membership includes not only the NORCs but other observer countries and interest groups as well. While voiceless in matters of security, it is now the premier “Arctic” polity in the world. In sum, the 1990s were a time of unprecedented cooperation between northern countries operating at many different levels.345

  Despite the hype about mad scrambles and looming Arctic wars, that cooperative spirit has persisted. The early twenty-first century saw the Arctic Council release the influential “Arctic Climate Impact Assessment” (a consensus science document, modeled after the IPCC assessments) requiring collaboration and sign-off from all of its members.346 A multitude of international collaborations was completed, without drama, during the International Polar Year. A major study of the region’s current and future shipping potential—again requiring international cooperation and sign-off by the eight NORC countries—was completed in 2009.347 The list of other examples of successful cooperation and integration between supposed adversaries, on things like search-and-rescue, environmental protection, aboriginal rights, science, and public health, is long.

  To be sure, the thorniest matters—national security, sovereignty, and borders—have been (and continue to be)348 scrupulously avoided. But unlike the past, the Arctic today is no longer a place of suspicious neighbors, armed to the teeth, who don’t talk to each other. Instead, there is in place a remarkably civil international network, one that is working cooperatively and effectively at many levels of governance.

  The Rule of Law

  The second reason to doubt the eruption of an Arctic War lies in UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Contrary to popular perception the Arctic is not a ruptured piñata. On land, its international political borders are uncontested. For the Arctic Ocean, there are now clear procedural rules for laying claim to its seabed, and indeed any other seabed. Most importantly, just about every country in the world seems to be following them.

  UNCLOS was negotiated over a nine-year period from 1973 to 1982 and has emerged as one of the most sweeping, stabilizing international treaties in the world. As of 2009 it was ratified by 158 countries, with many more in various stages of doing so. Of the eight NORC countries, seven have ratified UNCLOS. The one glaring holdout—the United States of America—is obeying all UNCLOS rules and sending signals that it will eventually ratify the treaty. It therefore constitutes one of the most agreed-upon rulebooks in international law and is a highly effective agent of order.

  The cornerstone of UNCLOS is the creation of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending from a country’s coastline for 200 nautical miles (about 230 statute miles) outward into the ocean. A country has sole sovereignty over all resources, living and nonliving, within its EEZ. It has the right to make rules and management plans and collect rents for the management and exploitation of these resources. The invention of these zones has greatly reduced “tragedy-of-the-commons” overfishing and other resource pressures and disputes in the world’s coastal oceans.

  That’s not to say UNCLOS is perfect. Now, disputes break out over island specks because they anchor a claim to a 200 nm radius circle on the surrounding seafloor. Tiny Rockall—literally a barren rock peeking out of the North Atlantic—has been claimed by the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, and Denmark. Denmark is also tussling with Canada over Hans Island, another speck sitting between the two countries in the Nares Strait off Greenland. The convoluted coastlines of Russia and Alaska open a doughnut hole of high seas in the midst of their Exclusive Economic Zones, into which Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Poland pour fishing trawlers.349 Finally, border disputes arise over how the two-hundred-nautical-mile extension is to be drawn with respect to other boundaries. Canada, for example, extends the ocean border as a straight-line extension of its land border with Alaska, whereas the United States draws the line at right angles to its coastline. This creates a smallish disputed triangle (about 6,250 square miles) of overlapping claims to the Beaufort Sea. In the Barents Sea, Norway and Russia had quite serious overlapping claims but announced resolution of the conflict in 2010.350 These are not insignificant disputes but, relative to the mess of conflicts existing prior to UNCLOS, manageable ones.

  Beyond the two-hundred-nautical-mile limit are the high seas, their resources controlled by no one. However, UNCLOS Article 76 allows a special exception. If a country can prove, scientifically, that the seafloor is a geological extension of its continental shelf—meaning that it is still attached to the country’s landmass, just underwater—then the country may file a claim with a special U.N. commission to request sovereignty over that seabed even beyond the two-hundred-nautical-mile limit.351 Article 76 lays out a clear and orderly procedure for doing this. Because the Arctic Ocean is small, has unusually broad continental shelves, and is mostly encircled by land, it is unique among the world’s oceans in that a great deal of it could potentially be carved up into these extended zones. Russia, Denmark, Canada, Norway, and the United States352 are the sole countries with frontage on the Arctic Ocean. These five countries are thus well positioned to win control over large tracts of its seafloor and any hydrocarbons or minerals it may contain.

  The key words here are scientific and orderly. The case for an Article 76 claim must be documented exhaustively with petabytes of scientific data. Foremost is a detailed mapping of seafloor bathymetry—its topographic relief—from multibeam hydrographic sonar. Seismic surveys, using explosives or blasts of compressed air to send shockwaves into the seabed, trace out the deeper subterranean geology. Sediment samples, like the ones grabbed by Chilingarov’s tiny submarines at the North Pole, are used to establish geological provenance. And so on.

  All of this takes years of costly research, but there is a process to it and eventually it gets done. Norway submitted its EEZ extension claim in 2006 and was approved in 2009.353 The United States, Canada, Denmark, and Russia are still busily mapping, with Russia
closest to being done. Canada will file by 2013 and Denmark by 2014. Because the United States hasn’t ratified UNCLOS yet, it will likely be last to file but has already gathered much of the required hydrographic sonar and other data from the Healy icebreaker, work led by Larry Mayer at the University of New Hampshire.

  After all this work and expense, small wonder that these five countries—Russia, Denmark, Canada, Norway, and the United States—recently banded together to issue the “Ilulissat Declaration,” an assertion that existing international laws are perfectly sufficient for working out their territorial disputes in the region. Everything’s cool, no new Arctic treaties are needed—or wanted. Now, would everyone else—like the European Union—kindly butt out?354

  These five powers are signaling that UNCLOS is the law of the Arctic Ocean, just like any other ocean. They are heeding its procedures for sovereignty claims to its seafloor, in the same manner as the many other Article 76 claims inching forward around the world. None are interested in relinquishing their existing right to make these claims. There will be no new “Arctic Treaty” with shared international governance, as exists in Antarctica. And centuries of legal precedent tell us that once the boundary lines get set, they will stay set. In Southern California today, property lines set by early ranchos have persisted through centuries of rule first by Spain, then Mexico, then the United States.

  So how will it all pan out? The bathymetric and geological data are still being collected, but Russia has the longest coastline and the broadest continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean. This optimal geography will win sovereignty over very large tracts of seabed and most of the natural gas promised by the U.S. Geological Survey assessment.355 Canada is positioned to more than double its offshore holdings northwest of Queen Elizabeth Island. The United States will expand dominion in a triangular wedge extending due north of Alaska’s North Slope, winning control of some of the Arctic Ocean’s most promising oil-bearing rocks. Norway has secured chunks of the Norwegian and Barents seas and will share claims with Russia in the gas-rich Barents Sea.

  But Norway has no shot at the North Pole and neither does the United States. That prize—if it is a prize—hinges on the Lomonosov Ridge mentioned earlier in the chapter. This thousand-mile undersea mountain chain, roughly bisecting the abyss of the central Arctic Ocean, is the only hope for a continental shelf extension claim extending as far as the geographic North Pole. Russia, Denmark, and Canada are busily mapping it.356 But the importance of the North Pole seabed, a distant, heavily ice-covered area and unpromising oil and gas province at that, is primarily symbolic. Personally speaking, if it’s really necessary for any country to control the North Pole, then it seems only fair that it be Russia. Russia’s first hydrographic surveys date to 1933. No surface ship ever reached the North Pole until the Soviet nuclear icebreaker Arktika accomplished it in 1977. By the end of 2009 the feat had been accomplished just eighty times: Once each by Canada and Norway, twice by Germany, thrice by the United States, six times by Sweden, and sixty-seven times by Russia. Her Sibir icebreaker completed the first (and only) voyage to reach the North Pole in winter back in 1989. As far as I’m concerned, Russia has earned it.

  Whether the science will reveal the Lomonosov Ridge to be geologically attached to Russia, or to Greenland (Denmark), or to Canada, or none of them, is unknown. What is known is that no one is bristling missiles over this. And there’s little reason to think that anyone will.

  The Five-Century Dream

  The dream is a northern shipping route between the Atlantic and Asia’s Far East, a quest spanning over five centuries since the English, Dutch, and Russians first began looking for it. The only alternative, until the Suez and Panama canals were built, was to sail all the way around the southern horns of either Africa or South America. Many intrepid souls died looking for a shorter route over the North American or Eurasian continents. Probing northwest (the Northwest Passage), their ships got stuck like bugs to flypaper in Canada’s perennially frozen northern archipelago, en route to the Bering Strait. Others died trying northeast (the Northern Sea Route), attempting to trace Russia’s long northern coastline to reach the Bering Strait from the other direction. Both routes have now been traversed many times but neither is a viable commercial shipping lane. However, a small amount of international traffic is stirring between Canada’s port of Churchill (in Hudson Bay) and Europe, and occasionally Murmansk.

  Since the 2007 and 2008 sea-ice convulsions, the prospect of global trade flows streaming through the Northwest Passage, the Northern Sea Route, or even straight over the North Pole has become one of the most breathlessly touted benefits of global climate change. After all, those fifteenth-century navigators were geographically correct: Even after the Panama and Suez canals were made, the shortest shipping distances between Asia and the West would still lie through the Arctic Ocean.357

  Lest we get carried away with visions of colorful sailboat regattas in the Arctic Ocean, keep in mind just how formidable sea ice is to the maritime industry. Only the largest heavy class of icebreaker like the Rossiya can break through it confidently.358 Canada has just two heavy icebreakers, the United States three. Russia—by far the world leader in this domain—is expanding its fleet to around fourteen. Seven are nuclear-powered, the largest and most powerful in the world.359 But icebreakers are costly and few. They require a strengthened hull, an ice-clearing shape, and serious pushing power, features not possessed by normal ships.360 There are barely a hundred of them operating in the entire world. The world’s other vessels, of course, number in the hundreds of thousands, but cannot navigate safely through sea ice.

  However, there is a very real possibility that by 2050, if not sooner, the Arctic Ocean will become briefly free of sea ice in September, by the close of the northern hemisphere summer. The ice will always return in winter (much like the Great Lakes today), but this is nevertheless a radical transformation, one that will dramatically increase the seasonal penetration of shipping and other maritime activities into the region. For part of the year, it would change from being the domain of a handful of heavy icebreakers to that of thousands of ordinary ships.

  One doesn’t need a fancy climate model projection to appreciate this. It’s already obvious today. On the following two pages, consider the seasonal cycle of shipping activity that already happens each year in the Arctic. When sea ice expands in winter, ships retreat. When it shrinks in summer, they advance.

  Note the profound restriction that sea ice imposes upon shipping activity. Few, if any, vessels dare to enter the ice pack, but there are thousands of them poking and probing around its southern periphery (there were at least six thousand ships operating in the Arctic in 2004, the year that these two maps capture).361 In January, sea ice confines them to the Aleutian Islands, northern Fennoscandia, Iceland, and southern Greenland. Even the icebreakers retreat then. Only Russia did any serious icebreaking—to and from Dudinka, a port for the Noril’sk mining complex on the Yenisei River. But in July, when the ice melts, the ships pour in.

  The Arctic Ocean will never be ice-free in winter, but summer shipping will last longer and penetrate more deeply. If it really does become ice-free by late summer, it should be briefly possible to sail a ship right over the top of the world.

  Not all shipping companies are thrilled about the prospect of this. Take, for example, Northern Transportation Company Limited, northern Canada’s oldest Arctic marine operator. Since 1934 NTCL has been providing cargo transport down the Mackenzie River and all across North America’s western Arctic coast, from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Taloyoak in Nunavut. The bulk of their business is cargo transport to villages, oil and gas operations, mines, and offshore energy exploration. The company’s vice president, John Marshall, was kind enough to show me around their port in Hay River, on the shore of Great Slave Lake.

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  I was impressed. There were a hundred barges in operation, acres of other vessels parked, and a Syncrolift to raise huge ships entirely out of the water.
Workers were swarming all over the barges to load them up and move them out. The company moves fast to capitalize on their short shipping season—only about four months—before the ice returns in October. But when I bounced the long-term climate model projections for sea ice off my host, I was surprised to learn he hopes to never see their simulations materialize. A longer shipping season on the Mackenzie would be wonderful, but an open Northwest Passage would allow competition in from the east. The sea ice blocking that passage, Marshall told me, was keeping his southern competitors out.363

  If the Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free in summer, it will also affect maritime activities in at least one other important way. It spells the disappearance of so-called “multiyear ice,” the more obstructing of two forms of sea ice currently present there. “First-year” ice, as the name implies, is baby ice, less than twelve months old. It is one or two meters thick and relatively soft, owing to inclusions of salty brine and air pockets. While definitely dangerous, it is easily cleared by icebreakers and will not generally gore a properly handled vessel with an ice-strengthened hull. Importantly, first-year ice is also less damaging to the drilling platforms and other infrastructure needed to produce offshore oil and natural gas.364 But multiyear ice is hard and can grow up to five meters thick.365 It is utterly impassible to most ships and can foil even a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker.

  In a world where all sea ice melts away each summer, multiyear ice will go extinct and icebreakers will go where they please. Ships with fortified hulls—and even ordinary vessels—would be somewhat safer.366 From a regulatory standpoint, this could lead to ships of a lower polar class being permitted to enter and operate in the Arctic.367 The Northern Sea Route (especially) and the Northwest Passage would become viable lanes. For a brief time window each year, it would become feasible to cross right over the North Pole in ice-strengthened ships. A dream come true.